Leseprobe

208 Still Life with a Couple, a Bitch and Litter Frans Snyders Antwerp 1579 –1657 Antwerp c. 1625 Oil on canvas · 197×325 cm Acquired through Bonaventura Rossi and P. Querin in 1743 Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, gal. no. 1195 T H I S OP U L E N T S T I L L L I F E of game is arranged on a wooden bench, as though the fowl, rabbits, boar, and deer had been casually dropped there after the hunt. The bench is so copiously laden that some of the animals have slipped over the edge, creating a bridge to another, smaller still life in the lower left corner with dead partridges, a switch of small songbirds, and an overflowing basket of fruit. This is contrasted by the lively, dramatic scenes playing out on the right side of the picture. An attractive maid in summery clothes who is working as a market vendor selling the wares, has been grabbed by the arm by a man. The same scene seems to repeat itself at their feet, this time acted out in canine gestures. A female dog, surrounded by a litter of puppies, is baring her teeth as she guards a loaf of bread from another dog entering the pictorial space from the right. The way in which the female dog’s posture mirrors that of the young woman is certainly no coincidence. At first glance the still life might suggest a composi- tion of haphazard excess, but upon further examination it reveals an ingenious aesthetic concept. Our eye is drawn to the red entrails of the disembowelled boar at the centre. The still life’s colour scheme of warm brown, ochre, and gold hues is contrasted by the striking white accents scattered across the canvas, most importantly the white swan with its wings widespread, neck dangling to the ground. Synders ren- ders the young woman in a combination of cool blues, whites, and reds; colours that reappear in the plumage of the fowl laid out across from her. The opulent, multi-part depiction thus reveals an intentionally balanced and sophisticated com- position, formulated through artfully drawn lines and inter- connected pictorial elements. The bountiful bench is laid out like a market stall, with its ostentatious display of myriad animals and fruit represent- ative of a lifestyle that coincides with the ideals of the upper classes in Catholic Flanders at the beginning of the 17th cen- tury. Carnal pleasure, love, and marriage lie at the centre of this symbolically charged picture. Its interpretation begins with the couple at the right, which finds its counterpart in the two turtle doves sitting on the sieve at the centre of the canvas. As she turns to her suitor, the young woman indicates the peacock, an attribute of Hera (Roman: Juno), the ancient tu- telary goddess of marriage, and a symbol of marital virtue. To her left, we see artichokes and asparagus, considered aphro- disiacs at the time. The sieve holding the asparagus, however, channels those desires and guides them into the form of a vir- tuous marriage. The exuberant young woman seems to resist these base urges, whilst the animals that symbolize carnal love, eroticism, and lust (rabbit, partridge, small birds) carry equal weight in the composition as those with positive connotations such as purity, light, and resurrection (swan and peacock). Synders was a contemporary and long-time collabora- tor of Peter Paul Rubens and played a seminal role in estab- lishing and developing still life painting as an independent art form in Flanders. The opulent, monumental market and kitchen scenes that exemplify his work – and which gained in value through his collaboration with figure painters from Rubens’s circle – earned the Antwerp artist a reputation as the foremost still life painter of his time.  |  un